New air-con for old building

It’s pretty straight forward really, and whilst I’d urge you to have someone with legal training prepare something that’s specifically suitable for your Plan, you could incorporate some or all of the following:

1. Include some words that captures any existing installations and makes the current and future Owners of those responsible for all on-going maintenance, repairs, and replacement of their property.
2. Develop some base-line standards for future installations such as acceptable locations (e.g. on balconies), max. noise levels, screening of all visible components, condensate disposal etc
3. Require Owners to provide the Owners Corporation with written details of their proposed installations, including make/model, kW rating, noise level, and of its compliance with whatever’s in #2.
4. Require the Owners Corporation’s written consent to be obtained in advance of any future installations.
5. Require Owners of consented installations to be responsible as in 1)
6. Include some words to make Owners responsible for the costs of aircon. installations
7. Require Owners to use licensed tradespeople and for those to hold liability insurance.
8. Prescribe days / hours during which installations may occur and how rubbish/ packaging etc must be disposed of (e.g. off-site).
9. Owners to indemnify the Owners Corporation against any damage arising from the on-going maintenance, operations, and replacement of their aircons.
10. Same as the above for any damage caused to Common Property during installation, maintenance, operations etc etc
11. Restrictions on the hours of operations in accordance with the Protection of the Environment Operations Act or whatever may replace it from time to time
12. Owners receiving consent to acknowledge that if they don’t properly maintain their aircon. then the Owners Corporation may enter their Lot to do so, may if necessary remove the aircon. and reinstate its Common Property as necessary, and may bill the then Lot Owner for all its costs of the above.
13. Make sure that the wording captures not only the Owner doing the installation, but additionally all future Owners of the Lot where the aircon’s installed.

That’s the bare bones of what should be included, but just make sure that whatever you decide upon specifically suits your Plan; you are after all starting with a clean sheet. Oh, and you do know that your final version needs to be “specially resolved” by those present at a General Meeting (i.e. with ≥75% voting in favour by unit entitlement) prior to its Registration on your Plan’s Strata Title; right?

simone – despite your reference to an “ACT tribunal”, I’ll assume that you’re in NSW, and will advise as I have many times before, that a reliance on cooperation as an alternative to by-laws as the means to manage strata schemes’ affairs works well until just one person decides not to (cooperate).

That’s particularly critical when, as in your scheme’s situation, that failure to cooperate involves changes to the common property, to the appearance of the building, and leads to noise impacts upon neighbouring residents.

Your executive committee (E/C) has asked the owner concerned to relocate her air-conditioner, and as that’s been refused its best option in my opinion is to formally convene another meeting of members to vote on a motion to decide upon whether that owner is in breach of by-laws due to her causing damage to the common property (#5), altering the appearance of her lot (#17), and causing noise that interferes with the peaceful enjoyment of neighbours.

If the E/C’s reasonable belief is that any or all of those by-laws has been breached, then a vote should be taken to issue the owner with a Notice to comply for each of the by-laws that it believes have been breached (i.e. possibly 3 notices), and be prepared to substantiate that decision if the owner doesn’t comply and the matter proceeds to the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) over the issue of a penalty (for non-compliance).

Make sure that the E/C meeting is formally convened with an agenda comprising the suggested motions, and the it’s distributed in advance to all owners at least 72 hours in advance.

That’s the best option in my opinion given the circumstances, although your E/C could attempt mediation over the noise issues alone even though that’s a consequence of the breach, and therefore likely won’t address it as the prime issue.

The next priority is of course to place a motion on the agenda for the very next general meeting to create and register a special by-law covering owners’ installation of air-conditioners.